In recent years, the Wi-Fi technology based on IEEE 802.11 standards has seen tremendous growth and commercialization. Almost all available user equipment, with cellular capability support, have Wi-Fi capability to connect with Wi-Fi networks operating in any of the unlicensed frequency bands, 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz.
With the “Internet of things” (referred hereafter as “IoT”) concept getting prevalent these days, devices used in day-today activities such as coffee makers, electric switches, washing machines, headphones, lamps etc. are also being increasingly looked upon as potential IoT devices. An IoT device is generally provisioned with an internet protocol (referred hereafter as “IP”) address to provide it with the capability of transferring data and receive control signals over the wireless network.
In general, a Wi-Fi network comprises of a plurality of wireless access points that provide wireless services in an area covered by the plurality of wireless access points. Each of the wireless access points is compliant to IEEE 802.11 standard and operates in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum. Also, the plurality of wireless access points shares a common network identifier and are connected to a centralized server via wireless interface/s. The centralized server further manages onboarding functions related to the IoT devices. Moreover, the IoT devices which are already on boarded or seeking onboarding on the Wi-Fi network are served by the plurality of wireless access points. Currently, in order to connect the IoT devices with the Wi-Fi network, a user interface of a user equipment is utilized to perform various onboarding functions related to the IoT devices. This is due to the reason as most of the IoT devices lack dedicated and comprehensive user interface to provision Wi-Fi configuration setting thereby, making it difficult for users of these IoT devices to board the devices on to their Wi-Fi network.
In the absence of dedicated user interface of the IoT devices, for configuring Wi-Fi access details, many of the IoT devices rely on WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) support on the user equipment and the wireless access points to get connected to the Wi-Fi network. However, WPS requires manual intervention to connect or re-connect with the IoT devices to the Wi-Fi network, thereby making it a non-seamless and non-scalable onboarding technology. Moreover, the WPS is difficult to troubleshoot and has known security flaws.
Other existing approach that is commonly available today is based on configuring the IoT devices to function as a Wi-Fi hotspot with predefined configuration setting available with the IoT devices, after which the user equipment gets connected to the IoT devices in order to push the Wi-Fi configuration setting into the IoT device to onboard it on the Wi-Fi network. However, this approach requires a moderate level of technology expertise and involves multiple steps making it a time consuming and non-scalable approach.
Another alternative approach relies on communicating and onboarding an IoT device with assistance from another IoT device that is already on board on the Wi-Fi network over a communication interface compatible with both of the IoT devices. However, the approach requires the support of additional communication interface on IoT devices so that the IoT device seeking onboarding to the server communicates with another IoT device which is already on board on the Wi-Fi network.
Therefore, in view of the above shortcomings in the existing approaches, there is a need in the art that ensures easy and smooth onboarding of the IoT devices on the Wi-Fi network, considering the lack of dedicated user interface with the IoT devices for Wi-Fi configuration provisioning.